


The Scientist and I

by signifier



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved
Genre: I Know Nothing About Science, M/M, i guess subtle shyan?, it might become less subtle, scientist!shane, the world disappearing au nobody asked for, unfortunatecitizen!ryan, who knows? i dont
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-29 17:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15734421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifier/pseuds/signifier
Summary: Have you ever wished someone would simply drop off the face of the Earth? What about two people? How about an entire population? And what if you were the only one left? Or so you thought.-“But why us? How has the Earth’s population all disappeared apart from us?”Shane sighed, shaking his head. “Honestly, Ryan, I couldn’t tell you.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know absolutely nothing about science so don’t expect any fancy science explanations.

Ryan woke with a start, his hand flying to his head and an _‘oh, fuck’_ falling from his lips. That had fucking hurt. He slowly sat up from where he was now laying on his living rooms carpet. Nothing seemed to have changed - everything was exactly where it had been before. Everything, that was, apart from the smashed mug and ever-so-subtly expanding pool of coffee that threatened to stain the cream fabric. Ryan rubbed his eyes, trying to destroy the remaining white spots that floated in his vision. He slowly got to his feet, head pounding, either from hitting the floor so suddenly or the flash of light, he wasn’t sure.

And what had that flash of light been? Lighting? Had lightning struck the house?No, there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky before it happened. Ryan stood, looking around his empty apartment, feeling like something obvious was missing.

“What the fuck was that..?” He mumbled, bringing a hand up to drag through his hair and rub the sore sport on the back of his head.

And what had he been doing, again? He had been right in the middle of something before he passed out. Something not easily forgotten. Ryan stared down at the coffee and it’s dark colour, hands on his hips. He didn’t even like coffee that much, especially not black like that. The only person he know who drank it like that was - “Andrew!”

How could he have forgotten that he had literally been talking to Andrew seconds before the light? He ignored the dull, thumping pain in his skull as he started running from room to room, searching for his friend and calling out his name as he went. Eventually, he ended up back where he started, even more confused than before. Had they been attacked? Had someone set off a flash-bang and kidnapped his friend?Andrew was a closed off, shady son of a bitch when he wanted to be; maybe some mob boss had set out a bounty on him. Ryan frowned, shook the thoughts out of his head and stepped over the broken coffee cup once more to head for his front door.

 

-

 

Roads were creepy at night, that was universal. There was something about a road, something you associated with loud cars and fast movements, that was incredibly unsettling when it was completely abandoned and dark.

Somehow, Ryan found this to be much worse.

It was the middle of the day, so cars littered the roads, and a few bikes scattered the pavements. The odd thing about this scenery, though, was it’s lack of people. Car engines were left running, all coming to a halt with nobody inside to keep it moving and bikes lay flat on the concrete, alone and forgotten. Some of the wheels were still spinning.

Ryan slowly moved out of his front door, an overwhelming urge to stop the moving wheel of the bike that just so happened to lay right outside his house coming over him. He bent down, using two fingers to stop the movement. With the soft clicking of the spinning wheel silenced, the whole road seemed quite eerie. Ryan moved back inside.

He sat on his couch, legs crossed in a figure four and his mind racing. This had to be a joke. Someone was fucking with him and had gotten his whole street in on it. That had to be it. Soon, they’d all pop out and Andrew would laugh and apologise for smashing his mug and everything would go back to normal again. Then a cold shudder crossed over his body as he thought, what if it hadn’t just been his street. Whatever the light was it had been fucking bright, and somehow loud, too. Ryan was only now starting to realise the faint ringing that held place in his ears. He stood up from his sofa, grabbing the jacket that he had left on the cushioned arm when he and Andrew had entered his home and made his way to the front door once more.

 

-

 

He didn’t allow the vacancy of the streets to bother him as he sprinted down them, his footsteps harsh on the concrete floor. Everywhere he went, cars and bikes and litter and other miscellaneous objects that people would hold had been left abandoned in the street. Ryan knew the place well. He often went for jogs in the late evening, and even then the city was never completely scarce. There was always a dog walker, some small group of teenagers, another runner - there was always some sign of life. Except now, there wasn’t.

He passed by the supermarket that he normally went to and paused in his frantic searching to shop and stare at it. Trolley’s had been left abandoned, halfway to cars and full of people’s shopping. He found himself wanting to go inside, and the next thing he knew his feet were bringing him right up to the sliding, glass doors.

There was something incredibly _wrong_ about a supermarket being still and quiet in the middle of the day. A supermarket was a place that was meant to be busy and loud and so alive with people that it was borderline annoying, but now, as Ryan slowly made his way up and down the familiar isles, he found the entire place unsettling. The floor was littered with contents; smashed egg cartons, packets of crisps, cleaning supplies, as if whoever had been holding them had just suddenly decided ‘nope’ and dropped them. He made his way through the lonely shopping trolleys that scattered the building, coming up to the tills and taking in the scene. He’d always found this particular part of the shopping process excruciatingly painful to deal with. It was the noise, for one, the constant beep of your items and the feeble attempt that the cashier makes of a conversation. Then you had all the people. The people cuing up for rows and rows, all wanting to just get on with it, staring impatiently at you as you take a little too long for their liking. Ryan knew he’d been that person many times before.

He almost felt bad now, in all his confusion, of all the times he’d wished someone would fuck off, or have the ground swallow them where they stood. Being the only person around, he couldn’t help but feel that he had something to do with where everyone had gone.

And where had they gone? Had everyone died? His stomach dropped at that, thoughts of friends and family floating through his mind. No, they couldn’t be, there was no evidence of death. Then the thought clicked that he was dreaming, and relief rushed over him. That was a thing, wasn’t it? People could realise they were in a dream. He brought a hand up to his arm, pinching and twisting in an attempt to wake up, but nothing happened. He was still stood in the empty supermarket. He made a sudden move to leave the building, the place somehow feeling too crowded.

Nothing had changed outside. There was a strong breeze that blew through the street, moving some trolleys a few centimetres forward. Ryan almost hated it.

He had never been a huge people person before. He found big groups annoying and loud and would rather just sit with a few friends discussing absolutely anything and everything. They often joked around with what they would do if they were the last person left alive. _‘Rob everything’_ or _‘do a bunch of illegal shit’_ or _‘not have to cue for rides in disney land.’_ Ryan’s last idea had been shut down when his friends had said there would be nobody to operate the rides. But now, standing alone with his hands in his pockets, Ryan didn’t find any of those ideas funny. He had a sudden longing to return home.

 

-

 

The shattered mug had made no magic attempt to piece itself back together as Ryan had hoped that it would, so he simply left it there and settled down on the sofa. After a few seconds of staring at his reflection in the blank television screen, he picked up the remote and flicked it on. A grey, bubbly static filled the glass and Ryan oddly found himself associating it with the feeling you get when your hand falls asleep. He skipped through the channels, all of them presenting the same ugly grey. He tried the phone next, tapping on the first contact on his list. _It has not been possible to connect your call._ It hadn’t even rung. He tried a few more numbers - his mum, Steven, the police, but all had the same women’s voice speaking back to him. _It has not been possible to connect your call._

Ryan sighed, letting the phone drop from his hand and allowing his head to fall back against the wall behind the sofa. He was trying to think of someone else, anyone else, that he could contact. Like a fire brigade, or the government, or fucking NASA. His head shot up at that thought.

There was a science lab not far from where he lived. He’d never been inside before, but he and his friends used to see how close they could get before some security guard chased them out. It was always so heavily guarded, too, and Ryan had always wondered what they did in there. That was the plan then. Go to the lab. It wasn’t like he had a better idea, and there was certainly nobody around to stop him. Besides, maybe he could find something that would explain what the fuck was going on.

He stood up from the couch, deciding that going right now was the best idea. Anyway, it’s not like he had anything better to do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a huge building, sections leading onto sections and the whole place decorated with a metallic sheen.

It wasn’t cold out, yet Ryan found himself wrapping his jacket tighter around him as he walked. It must have been, what, an hour or so since the flash of light, and Ryan already found himself craving some sort of sound that wasn’t his own breath. As he thought about it, there wasn’t even a bird chirping or a dog barking as it searched for it’s newly disappeared owner, and that was something that scared Ryan.

He was close to the science lab, had made the journey many times before, but it was a long walk and his feet were starting to ache. He couldn’t drive - there were cars blocking the road.

The whole scene reminded him of a zombie apocalypse. Abandoned vehicles, forgotten lands, a haunting memory of the world that once was. He half expected to hear a low moan and the dragging of worn shoes against concrete before a member of the undead rounded the corner, it’s flesh rotten and moth eaten. But there was simply nothing. At least in an apocalypse there were survivors. Ryan would take that any day over the unexplainable purgatory he seemed to be stuck in.

The lab was in his sights now. It was a huge building, sections leading onto sections and the whole place decorated with a metallic sheen. He’d always wanted to run his hand over the outside surface and see if it was as smooth as it looked.On the roof there was antennas and solar panels, all things that he had joked about being just for show. He couldn’t lie, he was excited to finally enter the building that he’d been trying to get close to for so long. He felt a little sad at the thought. He wished his friends were here to go in with him.

Ryan pushed down this thoughts as he came up to the front doors. It was starting to get dark and he wanted to find somewhere to sit down. He wrapped a hand around the handle, slight excitement brewing inside him as he pulled it open and stepped inside. For a second, he was surprised that it opened, but then he remembered that it had been the middle of the day when everyone disappeared, so people would have been working.

It was warm inside the lab and there was a soft whirring noise coming from deeper inside that Ryan assumed were machines. For a high tech laboratory it sure was dull. The walls were all painted in the same sickly, hospital white and he could practically taste the static in the air. As he moved further in the place got more complicated. Narrow hallways branched off into many different directions, rooms led into others and the whole place seemed manic. There were files open and covering desks and the floor where they’d been forgotten, computers left running complicated programs and even a pot of boiling water spilling over the sides on a stove. Ryan had turned that off. There were signs too, which Ryan was grateful for, at almost every turn of a corridor. They were pretty simple instructions, ‘Floor 1 - Labs 1-10’ all the way down to ‘Floor 4 - Labs 31 - 40’.

Ryan made quick work of briefly scanning each floor for any sign that someone was here, that someone had made it, but there was nothing.

He came to the end of the last floors search, took a seat on one of the chairs that lined the hallway and sighed. He really didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t this, and he didn’t even know where to start looking for a solution. Before arriving here, he’d had hope that something would be able to provide him with answers, but now, now he had nothing. A deep sense of sadness creeped over him - the kind that seeps into your bones and eats at your heart. He wanted to call his mum. He wanted her to fuss over his eating habits and tell him to visit her soon. He wanted Andrew and Steven in his house - wanted them to bicker with him, and critic his choice of coffee. He wanted to see Kieth and Ned and Zach and Eugene, hear them all laugh as they thought up new ways to break into the lab. Ryan just wanted _someone._

It was at that moment, as he looked up from his chair, that he noticed a door at the end of the hallway. It was normal enough - there were many doors down this corridor - but the thing that struck him as odd was that the door wasn’t labelled. All the others were, small little plaques that let you know which science lab you were coming to, but this door simply had nothing. He found himself rising from his chair, making his way down the corridor, and pulling it open.

There were stairs leading down.

Ryan frowned. He was on the fourth floor and according to all the signs, that was the final floor, yet the stairs were here and calling him to go down further. So he did. They were steep, spiralling tightly in a way that had Ryan feeling slightly dizzy, and they seemed to go on for ages. Just when he thought he’d have to take a break, one more spiral led to a long, dark corridor. There were few lights, and the ones that hung from the ceiling flickered enough to give Ryan a headache. The whole place made him feel uneasy. He couldn’t help but feel like he’d be jumped any second and he had to keep reminding himself that there was nobody around to hurt him.

Unsurprisingly, the corridor led to another door, and he wasted no time in pulling it open.

He was met with a wide room and the sound of tech buzzing in his ear. The first thing he noticed was that the room was quite cold compared to the rest of the lab, and Ryan dug his hands deep in his jacket pockets. Then he let his eyes truly scan the area. He’d never seen such a sight in his life. In the middle of the room, almost dead centre, was a tall, slender metal pole that went right up to the ceiling. Ryan could feel the energy pulsating from it. Surrounding it was a bunch of computers and screens; colours, numbers, readings all flashing and changing every second. Then he noticed the part of the room that made his heart stop. He didn’t know how it wasn’t the first thing he had seen - he put it down to being used to being alone.

In the middle of the room, seated at a desk, was a man.

He hadn’t seen Ryan, the guy had his head leaning on his arms against the desk. White fabric covered his tense shoulders and Ryan assumed he was wearing a lab coat. _So, he’s a scientist then._ Ryan opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly he wasn’t sure what to say. It was funny, he’d spent this whole time wishing for another human being, and now that one was right in front of him, he couldn’t find the right words. In the end, his loneliness won out. “Hello.”

The guys head shot up and he turned so fast in his chair that Ryan was surprised he hadn’t broken his neck. Ryan could see his face now. He had brown eyes and light brown hair and his skin was pale and white. A look of pure shock was etched into his face, but there was an underlying tiredness that seemed to hold in his eyes. He reached a hand back on the desk, not taking his eyes off Ryan as he searched for an object without looking. He found it quickly, picking up what Ryan realised to be glasses. They were wide and square, the rims of them were see through. Ryan thought it heightened his scientist look. Underneath his lab coat he wore a brown sweatshirt and there was a light pink collar sticking out from under it.

After so long of just staring at each other, Ryan grew nervous and he shifted awkwardly on his feet. Then the guy stood up. And he was tall. The kind of tall Ryan would find intimidating, if the man hadn’t also been so lanky. He had taken a few steps towards Ryan, looking him up and down a few times before opening his mouth and saying, “Holy goddamn shit.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You a scientist?"
> 
> "What gave it away?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots o talk

Shane stared at the computer monitor in front of him. The readings were going insane and he had no idea how to fix it. He was used to seeing the monitors charts change every now and then - little blips in the Earth’s energy, a birth, a death - but nothing had come close to what the screen was showing him now. The reading had increased to an alarming amount, hitting near dangerous on the energy spike level and he feared what would happen if it got any higher. Out of nowhere, it started to beep, a loud, shrill sound that sent a shiver down Shane’s spine.

Then the light came.

A quick, white burst of light shot from the core and engulfed the room, sending Shane stumbling backwards into his chair as he attempted to shield his eyes and escape. As quick as it arrived, it was gone.

Shane could do nothing but sit, hands still raised, completely dumbfounded as he stared at the now silent core. The computer screens had settled down, the readings back to normal. All, except one.

You see, the core would transmit a pulse of energy all around the world and bring the information back to Shane and his lab. It would count the births and deaths of humans and animals alike, register radioactivity, weather patterns, just about anything you assumed an energy pulse would pick up on. It also counted the population of the world. There was always a steady 7.6 billion blinking in the top left hand corner, the last few numbers rising and falling as the days went on. There was no longer a steady 7.6 billion blinking in the top left hand corner.

The number simply read - 2.

Shane stared, mouth hanging slightly open and white spots clouding his vision from the recent flash of light. He brought his hands to his eyes, rubbing aggressively before looking back at the screen. It hadn’t changed.

After doing laps of the entire laboratory and checking the area outside twice, Shane was back in his chair, head down on the desk. He couldn’t explain it. Now, Shane was a man of science of course, but he had quickly decided that this was scientifically impossible.

“Hello.”

Shane’s heart leapt in his chest and he shot up from his chair so fast he was slightly dizzy. He whipped around, finding the source of the noise standing in the doorway to his lab.

It was a man. He was short, tanned, dark hair and dark eyes. He was decked out in a sports jersey and a pair of shorts, confusion and worry etched into his face. Shane could do all but stare because fucking hell. The only two people supposedly (he refused to accept the fact that his monitor was correct) left on the planet and they were both in the same town and now the same building?

“Holy goddamn shit.”

The man shifted awkwardly on his feet, bring his arm up to hold onto the other. He seemed to be at a loss of words, so Shane spoke again. “You’re the other one.”

The confusion simply grew. “I’m the other..what?”

Shane threw an arm back, pointing at one of his many screens. “The other person.”

“Look, i’m really lost here. I- do you know whats happening?”

Shane shook his head. He didn’t like that he didn’t have this under control. “No. I don’t.” He paused before asking a question of his own. “Have you seen anyone else?”

The man shook his head. “No. The whole city is deserted. There’s no animals, either.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah..”

There was a moment of silence, because really, how do you even start to deal with a situation like that?

“I’m Ryan, by the way.”

Shane turned back from the monitors where he had been looking up the animal count. He hadn’t even considered what might have happened to the animals. “Shane.”

“You a scientist?”

“What gave it away?” Shane watched as a small smile tugged its way onto Ryan’s face. For a second, he looked less concerned. Then it was gone, replaced with a small sadness that Shane could feel in his own chest.

“I had a hunch. I was kind of hoping you’d know what’s going on.”

Ryan had made his way further into the room by now, his eyes scanning the room and landing on the core. Shane sighed. “I wish. I mean, maybe with some time I could look everything over, try and come up with some sort of conclusion, but I can’t promise anything.”

“How long would that take?”

He shrugged. “Maybe a few hours.”

Ryan seemed fuelled by the knowledge that an explanation was within their grasp. He threw himself down in a chair.

“Better get started then.”

 

-

 

It took them four hours. Well, ‘them’ meaning Shane. Ryan tried to help, but parts were complicated and he couldn’t really make much sense of it. He resulted to asking questions, or simply repeating the last thing Shane had said, which led Shane further down his train of thought. It brought him new ideas every now and then, so yes - it took _them_ four hours. Shane spoke fast in his explanations, practically radiating with enthusiasm and Ryan suspected that not many people were willing to sit and listen to a complicated science lecture. Ryan was just glad he had someone else’s voice to listen to.

Shane had been sitting at his monitors in silence for a good 20 minutes now, claiming he was trying to piece everything together. Ryan had taken to wandering around the room, restraining himself from touching anything that looked important. Finally, Shane spoke. “Okay.”

Ryan turned back to look at him from across the room. “Okay?”

“I think i’ve got something.”

Ryan crossed the room, sitting in the chair he had been occupying for the past four hours. “I’m all ears.”

Shane took a deep breath.

“This metal pole in the middle of the room here is what I call the core. The core sends out pulses of energy daily that cover the whole planet. It brings the information back here, then it’s my job to make sure everything is normal, things like radiation levels and the average birth and death rates. With me so far?”

Ryan nodded.

“I’ve been getting odd readings recently. The population has been incorrect, animals that aren’t extinct are being read as so, apparently England is currently drowning in radiation too. So, I can’t explain it, but my guess is that the core has been fucking up, then when it sent out it’s energy pulse, it kinda wiped everyone from the Earth. Apart from us, of course.”

He didn’t sound too sure of himself. Ryan spoke up. “That’s not a lot to go on.”

“That’s nothing to go on. It doesn’t explain any of it and gives us no way to fix it. Who knows, maybe we’re the one’s who died and everyone else is fine.”

Ryan felt the dread strike his heart. He couldn’t help the panic that came out in his voice. “You think everyone’s dead?”

Shane looked at him then. “I mean, I don’t want to think it, but what other explanation is there? Do you think they’re still alive?”

Ryan shrugged, feeling his face heat up. “I had an idea, but it’s stupid.”

“Well, I’m the only one here to judge you.”

He smiled at that, his hesitation slipping. “I think.. I’d like to _believe_ that they’re caught in some limbo. Not dead, but not really existing either. If they’re not dead then, it gives us a chance to bring them home.”

It was Shane’s turn to smile. “Limbo. I like that. Good to know one of us is an optimist in this situation.”

Ryan laughed. “You can take the pessimist role then.”

“Honey, I always do.”

The chatter died down again. Both men were pleasantly surprised by just how easy it was to be comfortable around someone they’d just met. Ryan found himself boiling it down to the circumstance that he had to get along with Shane, because Shane was the only person around to get along with, but a small part of his brain was telling him it was simply because Shane was nice to be around. He couldn’t stop himself from voicing his confusion once more.

“But why us? How has the Earth’s population all disappeared apart from us?”

Shane sighed, shaking his head. “Honestly, Ryan, I couldn’t tell you.”

He glanced towards the core, taking in the shine of the metal. “Well, I have one idea about me, but you I can’t explain.”

Ryan leant back in his seat. “Go for it.”

Shane hadn’t taken his eyes from the core. “I’m the only one who’s ever down here. I mean that literally, I’m the only person in the world to have set foot in this room. Apart from you, obviously. When I was hired, one of the top scientists in the lab approached me with a project from the government. It was to sit down here and control the energy pulses, make notes of the information and then feed it back if things were weird - like I mentioned before, but the guy who asked me to do it figured people wouldn’t like the idea of their information being read daily, so as few people as possible were told about it and I was just kinda left to myself. I think my body got used to the energy pulses from being so close to it all the time, so when it malfunctioned, it didn’t effect me. Alas, here I am.”

“So, you’re immune.”

Shane laughed - a glorious sound that had his eyes crinkling. “That’s a more fun way to put it, yes.”

“Doesn’t explain me, though.”

A shake of the head. “No, I said it wouldn’t.”

Ryan was silent for a moment, seeming deep in thought. Shane wrapped his lab coat around him a little tighter. It had always been cold down here.

“I don’t know which I’d prefer.” Ryan’s voice was so quiet Shane almost missed it. He didn’t interrupt, letting him finish his train of thought. “I don’t know if I would rather be alone on Earth or with everyone else, wherever they are.”

Shane could hear the longing in his voice, for a friend or family or boyfriend or girlfriend or cat or fish, he didn’t know, but he knew that he felt it too. He suspected that Ryan had came to the laboratory for answers, for help, and that was something he couldn’t promise. There was one thing he could offer, though.

“You’re not alone on Earth.”

Ryan looked at him and smiled. “No, I’m not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Feel free to comment, leave kudos or do whatever and check out my other fics if you like!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @sig-nifier. Message me if you'd like!


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